A day on the water beats a day in the office, especially when the fishing is as hot as it is right now. My dad and I set off in search of chinook salmon earlier this week, off the west coast of Vancouver Island. We didn’t have to wait long for the action to start and within an hour had hooked our first big fish of the day. Unfortunately I lost it at the boat when it threw its head around and popped the hook before we could net it. “It was a small one anyway,” we told ourselves as we rebaited and put the lines back in the water.

We didn’t have to wait long before we hooked our next one and we only had to wait five minutes before I lost that one at the boat too. I will admit, I was getting a bit frustrated at this point. My dad however was very supportive and assured me that it had been a smaller one too. So back into the water went the lines again as we continued our pursuit for that trophy salmon.

Then all of a sudden one of the rods started hammering and the line started screaming off the reel. This had to be a big one! It almost emptied the reel of line before we were able to get our other lines up and start chasing after him. Sheer panic set in when my fingers somehow got caught in the line coming off the reel. The first thought was about losing my fingers as the loop around them tightened and the fish continued to peel the line out, and the second thought was about losing the fish if the line broke around my fingers. I quickly managed to free my fingers only to see the line catch on the knobs on the reel. “No!” I screamed as I worked furiously to free the line. Then I felt slack line and got a sickening feeling in my stomach. I started reeling so fast that my arm and wrist started to cramp up. Finally I felt some good tension in the line again and breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t yet lost this one too. As the minutes ticked by and both fisherman and fish started to tire out, my dad got the net ready and I started easing the fish towards the boat. I did a little jump for joy when we finally netted the fish and pulled it into the boat - this really was a big Chinook, tipping the scales at 29lbs!

Re-energized, we threw the lines back out and hooked another one near my favorite spot that weighed in at 18lbs. It was an amazing day with clear skies, calm water, no wind and lots of fish, and I returned back to work the next day with plans for my next fishing trip already in place.